Using a Touring Plan at Walt Disney World With Toddlers – Lines App + Video

After my Magic Kingdom Attraction Experiment, a lot of viewers requested to see how it would work with kids. I also received many requests to use the TouringPlans Lines App in the parks.

Today, I combine both of those requests and present to you…umm, this video (That was a bit anticlimactic, but oh well).

Anyway, my daughter and I started the morning with an 8:30am reservation at Be Our Guest. From there, the plan was to hit up as many rides as we could sans FastPass+ before meeting up with my husband and son. How did we do? You be the judge!

Angela Dahlgren

As the host of TouringPlansTV, Angela produces weekly videos on our TouringPlans YouTube channel. When she's not talking about the happiest place on earth, she spends her time entertaining her own little Minnie and Mickey Mouse. You can find her on twitter @AngelaDahlgren or via email - angela@touringplans.com

Thanks for posting this video! I think it demonstrates two of the most important things to remember when going to the parks with young kids… 1) You should plan to be flexible with your touring plan, and 2) Have patience. Things are going to happen that you can’t always control, and there is a good chance you may not get to everything on your list. This is sometimes difficult for people like me, when you feel like you need to stick with the plan you’ve spent a lot time and effort on creating. However, I’ve learned in my experiences that everyone is happier when we’re patient and flexible.

Those two points you mentioned are true regarding having kids in general! It’s why I think having a day (or trip) to Walt Disney World without kids is really nice. It allows you to stick to your Touring Plan and experience everything that YOU want to. That being said, there’s nothing better than watching a magical Disney moment through the eyes of your children.

Thanks for the video Angela! This was timely as I consider how to best use a touring plan with two toddlers this winter.
I do have a question… in the video you mention that Early Morning Magic was likely responsible for greatly increasing your wait time on 7 Dwarves Mine Train. I wrote in a few weeks ago to this website and asked if I should change my rope drop strategy or even my park selection based on Early Morning Magic and your podcast partner, Brian, wrote back to say it should not be an issue because so few people attend… I know that event is still new and you are all probably still working out how it will affect people, but do you have any further insight in that? Does Early Morning Magic significantly affect touring plans and rope drop?
Thanks!

That is such a good point and thank you for bringing it up! The point I should have reaffirmed in the video (that we mentioned in the podcast) is that in the case of a morning event, the breakfast reservations will then work similar to rope drop. I’ll break it down:

Say there’s no Disney Early Morning event, breakfast diners could start riding 7DMT around 15-20 minutes before rope drop. That was my original plan with my daughter.

If there IS an event, breakfast diners would starting riding right at 9am along with the rope droppers. Eating at Be Our Guest, we had the advantage of being right next to 7DMT and since we mobile ordered, we thought we had plenty of time to eat and walk on over.

However…because our order was lost, we didn’t get our food until 9am and that threw off our plan.

So like we mentioned in the podcast, the event won’t be an issue for rope droppers and shouldn’t affect a TouringPlan. It just changes how early diners can start riding.